DePuy Hip Implant Class Action Filed in Australia

Another DePuy ASR Hip Replacement lawsuit, this time, a class action, has been initiated in Australia, reports The Herald Sun. Eight parties have been registered in the action; the case will be heard in the Federal Court in Sydney, Australia.

The lawsuit involves two types of DePuy devices that were manufactured in Great Britain by DePuy International, and distributed in Australia by Johnson & Johnsonâ€”the ASR Hip Resurfacing System and the ASR XL Acetabular System, The Herald Sun explained. The DePuy ASR Hip Implant Recall was implemented this summer.

Between 2003 and 2009, said The Herald Sun, 5558 implant procedures were conducted in Australia. The lead applicant in the class action, Tammy Stanford, 40, underwent a left hip replacement in 2005; however, she experienced health problems and, in January, a surgeon discovered that the affected hip joint was inflamed and the involved bone had deteriorated, said The Herald Sun.

Meanwhile, we just wrote that another alleged victim of the defective DePuy ASR Hip Implant debacle filed suit against DePuy Orthopaedics. According to this new DePuy ASR hip replacement lawsuit, the plaintiff was forced to undergo revision surgery a little over a year after receiving the Defective Medical Device. Since receiving his DePuy ASR hip implant, the plaintiff says his life has never been the same.

That DePuy ASR hip implant lawsuit was filed by a man living in the San Francisco Bay area. The plaintiff underwent a total hip replacement surgery using the DePuy ASR hip implant in July 2007. In the ensuing months, the implant loosened from his acetabulum, which led to his having to undergo a revision surgery in September 2008.

Johnson & Johnsonâ€™s DePuy Orthopaedics unit issued a worldwide recall for the ASR XL Acetabular Hip Replacement System after data from the National Joint Registry of England and Wales showed that 1 out of every 8 patients (12%-13%) who had received the recalled devices had to undergo revision surgery within five years of implantation. By then, more than 93,000 patients worldwide were fitted with an ASR hip implant. It is believed that roughly one-third of those were patients in the U.S.

The ASR Hip Implant System is a metal-on-metal hip device made of chromium and cobalt and consisting of a cup implanted into the hip with a ball joint that connects to the leg. It is believed that many of the complications linked to the DePuy ASR XL Acetabular hip implant are caused by wearing of the metal components, which can allow metal shavings to make their way into patientsâ€™ bloodstreams, leading to tissue breakdown, bone loss, and even the formation of non-cancerous tumors.

The shedding of metal shavings can cause cobalt poisoning, a disorder that, if left untreated, can put patients at risk for a number of dangerous reactions such as tinnitus (ringing in the ears), vertigo, deafness, blindness, optic nerve atrophy, convulsions, headaches, peripheral neuropathy, cardiomyopathy, and hypothyroidism.

Since the DePuy ASR hip implant recall was issued in August, the device maker has been named in scores of product liability lawsuits in the U.S. and overseas. Late last year, all federal DePuy hip implants lawsuits were consolidated in a multidistrict litigation before Judge David A. Katz in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.